Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #55 (Part 2): 23.12.1982 – Hygge Pop

Episode Date: December 18, 2020

Flags! Balloons! Tinsel! Zoo Wankeridge! David Stubbs, Neil Kulkarni and Al Needham start to gum their critical teeth up on the manky, non-Cadbury selection box that is the last proper TOTP of ’82, and imagine a world where Bing Crosby and David Bowie cover Prince Buster…    Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Hello my darlings, it's me, Anna Mann, actress, singer, welder, gotta have a backup. I've been in everything my darlings, and I've been cut from most things. However, I will not be cut from one thing, and that is my own podcast, Talking to Actors with Anna Mann,

where I meet those rarest of creatures, the actors. That's Talking to Actors on The Great Big Owl. The following podcast is a member of the great big owl family this will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence which could be quite graphic it may also contain some very explicit language which will frequently mean sexual swear words what do you like listening to? Erm, chart music. Chart music. Hey up you pop craze youngsters and welcome to part two of episode 55 of Chart Music.

Here I am again, Al Needham, and by my side are David Stubbs and Neil Kulkarni. Chaps, it's the first time I've brought you together for a play date. That's fucking insane, isn't it? Yeah, why is that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go on. Why have we been kept apart? Well, you're the dads of Chart Music, aren is that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go on. Why have we been kept apart? Well, you're the dads of chalk music. You just think having two dads, you think we'll just get off, you know.

Yeah, start talking about sheds and school runs and stuff like that, yeah. Wasps' nests and all that shit. Who was that? I would start about sheds as well, actually, yes. I'm going to be garrulous on that subject. It's a strange thing, though, I mean, we're 55 episodes in. What's been going on? Why have we been kept apart?

Yeah, extraordinary. I think this goes right to the top, doesn't it? Well, you're together now, and that's all that matters. Reunited for Christmas. Yeah, and it feels so good. Yes. Anyway, you know what I'm going to say now.

All right, then, pop craze youngsters. It is time to tuck into this episode of Top of the Pops and go all the way back to December of 1982. Always remember, we may coat down your favourite band or artist, but we never forget they've been on top of the pops more than we have it's 20 to 8 on th, December 23rd, 1982, and seeing as Christmas Day is falling on a Saturday this year, Top of the Pops is gearing itself up for a nice bit of overtime.

The Christmas Day edition, which will run from 2 to 3, is already in the tin, along with next Thursday's edition, which will be the second part of the review of the year. But the BBC's pop excitement department are still hammering away like little elves because this episode, as is the style of Top of the Pops in the early 80s, is live and direct, if you will. Were you ever excited by that, is Top of the Pops and it's live? No, not particularly they were

the only people who seemed to be excited about it yeah and and as a kid to be honest with you having you know by this time i will have seen completely mimed top of the pops if you like and completely you know edited top of the pops and i will also see we're even the presenters mind but i prefer things to be slick i don't like the raw edge supposedly that something live provides unless you say this and you want an all-on-about eve type fiasco to occur you know something like that as we've discussed before you know the bbc decided to to make top of the pops live because the charts have been moved up a couple of days so they didn't have so much time as before to react to it but you know you can still get all this in the can by wednesday

i think yeah i mean there's nothing's going to change in the world of pop in a day to you know i mean they have to break in and do an emergency broadcast no and to be honest with you yeah i mean the presenters it that even when um it's slickly edited together top of the pops it's still the presenters that add the oddity if you like or add the mistakes and they do that even you know without you know without the need for it being live last episode i did a chart music yeah tony blackburn was fucking up without any need to be live at all totally i mean there's no with the people With people like Simon Bates and Noel Edmonds or whatever, there's no rigorous self-criticism.

No, oh my God, that just didn't make any sense, did it? Can we do that one again? No. Nah, just put it in the pot. So your host tonight is... David Jensen, David Jensen. I'm 275 and 285. David Jensen, David Jensen.

David Kid Jensen, David Jensen. David Kid Jensen, who was firmly re-established at the controls of the weekday evening slot, working as the decompression chamber before John Peel. It's a slot he regained in October of 1981 from Paul Burnett after his year-long stint as the presenter of the 10 o'clock news on the Turner of broadcasting system in atlanta the forerunner to cnn he was welcomed back with open arms by the pop craze youngsters who have just voted him the third best radio show in the smash hits readers poll

one below the top 40 show and one above steve wr Kid Jensen at CNN, that's that would have been weird, wouldn't it? It'd be like seeing Dave Lee Travis on Weekend World or something like that. No, but it wouldn't though. It just does my head in that someone who presents top of the pops can go off and do anything else. But that's the thing with Kid Jensen. You do feel

he can do anything. He's so, it is that, perhaps it's that Danish-Canadian thing. But he can slot in anywhere know he's so it is that perhaps it's that danish canadian thing but he can slot in anywhere i mean considering before he even started broadcasting sort of pop music he was doing a show with jazz and classical music in it yes you cannot not conceive of that of course that makes sense he's just capable and he's a really safe pair of fans out of all of the djs and presenters that we've looked at across the breadth of chart music i still get on with kid jensen i still like him on the telly um i still like his presence i never

had a problem with him as a kid never felt he was some old fart and shouldn't be on it um and never felt he was graspingly young and trying to look young either he just sailed through um all the time always just really a comforting presence uh david yeah he has that kind of air of like a 1979 sort of trendy um school teacher as well you know with the hair and especially what he's wearing tonight that kind of it looks like he's probably the kind of guy that would turn up to a saturday night disco in a rugby shirt possibly but he's at the nice end of that spectrum you know he's not at the He's not at the horrible, getting swayed to eating rifles end of that spectrum. He's not necessarily the most delicious turns of phrase or whatever,

but I do like when, in the lead-up to this, he has his own show, and I do remember one time he just put some Nick Lowe on, and he said something like, I like anyone with a rock and roll heart, and Nick Lowe's beats loud and strong. Actually, I think that Kit Jensen's heart beats loud and strong, a rock and roll hard and nicolos beats loud and strong and actually i think that kid jensen's heart beats loud and strong a rock and roll yes faintly perhaps tonight you know in places but that's not necessarily his fault but um no um yeah yeah and and i think he has that essential likeability as well i mean yes you know the others are downright creeps in in most cases yeah if you

if you're working in an office and kid jensen started there, you'd think, I'd like to get to know him. I'll have a word with him at the Hawaiian night at the bowling alley. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, in an alternate universe, Kid Jensen stays at CNN

and he ends up reporting from the Gulf War and breaking the news about 9-11, which would have been insane. Yeah. But I'm sure he never seems cl clunky that's the thing it's just yes you know as i got through this episode uh i started thinking no spoilers or anything but i

started thinking it was some sort of punishment for the last episode that i did which was really good yes um but the one likable thing about this episode throughout um is kid he's the most likable element of it and and you know when I think about how unbearable the music that we're about to confront would have been if announced by DLT or something, it would have just accentuated the badness of some of the elements of this episode. But with him, I'm happy, you know.

He's not been dealt the best of hands, but he deals with it gamely. I mean, obviously, yeah, there's a question mark. He's the old school, you know, we're getting into the 80s now. But actually, I think, you know. He's not been dealt the best of hands, but he deals with it gamely. I mean, obviously, yeah, there's a question mark. He's the old school. You know, we're getting into the 80s now. But actually, I think, you know, if anything, I mean, you know, some of what's up tonight is kind of an insult to his sensibilities. I mean, some of it's an insult to Jimmy Savile's sensibilities.

So, yeah, yeah, we're all right with Kidd, you know, definitely. If you've been following our coverage of Top of the Pops in 1982, you'll know that it's been a year of profound change. And that continued in December, because on the first week of this month, Peter Powell has introduced three new Top of the Pops presenters, all wearing Radio 1 jackets like prospects in a biker gang, waiting to get their bottom rockers.

And those people were gary davis janice long and pat sharp which means that a night of the long knives is imminent amongst the presenters of the 70s and out of all of them kids one of the few is going to survive that cull isn't he yeah he is and and out of that set of new presenters that you just just uh said um i mean i put gary davis and peter powell and pat sharp together they are all sort of faintly they don't care about music and they're using radio and they're probably using top of the pops in a sense to propel their own fame i never really got that from kid he seems much more in the janice long genuine music fan definitely yeah because kids show you know had great session bands on.

And he seemed to care about music genuinely from the off. So, yeah, that's why he survived through to that, I think. Whereas your Edmonds' and your DLT's, thankfully, didn't. I mean, he's 32 at this point. And you can see him going right into the late 80s on Top of the Pops if he'd have stayed at the BBC and not taken the ITV and Nescafe shilling. 32. He could be my son.

32. And you'd be right proud of him, wouldn't you, David? Yeah, yeah. Him and his little rock and roll heart. We're feeling festive and I hope you are as well as this top of the box celebrates and looks at the last chart of 1982 and we kick off with a base at edge and this is Heartache Avenue. I found a place to live I got in the hard way

After the downpour of cuddled vinyl ceasers and a baubley video effect spins in towards the screen. We are assailed by a silvery backdrop, a silver Christmas tree, the neon top of the Pops logo bedecked with tinsel, and Kid in an unseasonable black rugby shirt and jeans flanked by two members of City Farm. There's a lad with a black PVC sleeveless top and a frizzy woman who starts dancing before even any fucking music comes on.

Kid tells us that everyone in the studio is feeling festive as fuck and as the camera pans left, taking in an absolute wank snap in a suit made of hazelnut and caramel quality street rappers, we're thrown into the opening single of the night, Heartache Avenue, by the Maisonettes.

Formed in Birmingham in 1982, the Maisonettes were the creation of Lawrence Mason, who was the son of Edward J. Mason, the creator of the 40s radio series Dick Barton Special Agent and co-creator of The Archers. At the time, Mason was best known as the former lead singer of City Boy, who were reputedly the first band ever to perform live on Top of the Pops in 1976 when the Hapkido Kid failed to chart,

but were best known for 5705, which got to number 8 in August of 1978. After City Boy split up earlier this year, Mason immediately put together a new 60s-inspired band, was picked up by the independent label Ready Steady Go, tacked on two local models, Denise Ward and Elaine Williams, to mime over the session's singers on the record, and this is their debut single. It came out at the beginning of the month. It's rocketing up the independent charts, and this week it's jumped up four places from number 43 to number 39,

giving them a shot on the pops. Already we're festooned with not only tinsel but zoo wankers oh yeah your favorites neil i think this episode features more zoo wankerage per pixel if you like yes than any other episode i've ever seen and it's fucking everywhere how many of them are there and i know it's relentless we're sloshing ankle deep in it but we are aren't we and and it's one of those i mean i found myself throughout this episode to be honest with you trying to in a sense look at the musicians or look at look at look at the performers but constantly distracted in the peripheries by somebody doing something cuntish that demanded the attention and it starts now on this first song and it does not stop it just does not stop it's it's

yeah it's a billion percent zoo wankerage all the way i mean just as a general observation throughout the show it's it's weird i mean it's almost like there's this vibe partly you know that they're kind of celebrating because all that kind of weird heavy manners punk stuff without all of that whole scene is completely petered out and we're free to party again with maximum inanity. But in a sense, in a funny kind of way, a lot of what's happening, a lot of the way that people are dressing, behaving, it does, oddly enough, derive from the same sort of radical sorts as punk, in a sense, because, you know, you see people dressing

in the kind of Vivienne Westwood type kind of gear and stuff like that. You know, that is strongly feeding into the look that a lot of people are wearing tonight. And the whole neuromantic thing, this is almost in the kind of Vivienne Westwood type kind of gear and stuff like that you know that is strongly feeding into the look of a lot of people wearing tonight and the whole new romantic thing this is almost like a kind of very very sort of you know dilute new romanticism you know basically about the way that they're kind of approaching dressing and everything like that you know it's shaking new romanticism yeah um you know but but it's it's completely devoid of the sort of radical intention of new romanticism. You know, this idea of like being, becoming whatever you want to become, especially in a sort of post-industrial world where, you know,

you're not defined by work and your job anymore. It's just deely boppers and sort of colour-brimmed specs and sort of, you know, absolute monality and just, you know, just throwing things together randomly, you know, without any sort of sense of context or whatever. I mean, that twat in the white shorts, what's that about? Oh, God, yes. I mean, that's the thing with Zoo. Unlike previous dance troupes,

they seem to have scorn for pop music, I think. Yes. And, you know, I don't know what other dance troupe would consider it a smart idea when they're going on a pop show, which is obviously loved by young pop fans, to dress up in a sense like shit parodies of pop stars. There's an Adam Ant guy. There's a guy randomly wearing tennis gear. Oh, yes. And as ever with Zoo, I just often think, never mind sort of even putting them at the front or even at the back, just get them out in the car park, please, with a cattle pod

and let them shiver their bollocks off while we get to see actual people. Zoo, throughout this episode, are dressed like a children's entertainer's parody of a pop star or a pop fan. I just hate them so, so fucking much. You're right. I think that to be a pop fan, you've got to have some sense of sort of discernment and differentiation or whatever.

And they just approach everything in this completely ridiculous kind of, you know, Everything's brilliant. Everything's great. Everything's great. I mean, it is. We just dance to it. This is it.

Almost before we could even hear the Maisonettes, I'm distracted by this particular blue-suited, utter wank snap, pulling the kind of expressions you now see on car adverts where models are paid to look like they're singing along to a song and as a child he would have annoyed me

and that annoyance would have in a sense become toothsome I would have kind of had this habit of focusing totally on that annoyance to get more annoyed and stoke up my own anger because he's in the peripheries throughout it and just the hateful expressions are just yeah yeah just just you know all uh only top of the pops would do this i mean thank fuck it wasn't they didn't spin this out throughout the whole bbc top of the pops is saying here that the

kids are actually interested in what's going up on stage they don't look good enough yeah they don't pass muster for top of the pops so we've got to get these cheerleaders in supposedly to whip up some excitement but the excitement's already there yeah you know i mean and they wouldn't do this on anything else whoever does match of the day isn't gonna go oh the halftime bit where they scan over the crowd trying to pick out kids eating pies. They're not going to go, oh, that kid, he's not eating his pie with enough enthusiasm for the show.

Let's get some people in. The 9 o'clock news doesn't get models in to stand in a doll queue and look depressed. It is absurd. It is absurd. I mean, in football terms, I mean terms there is a possible equivalence with things like the Gunnosaurus and those kind of mascots or whatever. Yeah, I won't have

a word said against Gunnosaurus. I'm obviously beating them. It's the only good thing about Arsenal as far as I'm concerned. But, you know, I suppose that kind of manufactured sense of enthusiasm. Yeah, exactly. Why didn't they just do that? Why didn't they just do that? Why didn't they have them in mascot outfits?

Well, it would cover up their expressions, those horrible expressions. The expressions basically people who hate music or have a little interest in music. Zoo's expressions throughout this episode are really kind of what they imagine what the enjoyment of music must look like. And the enjoyment of music does not look like that. No.

I don't know where they're coming from. They're dancers, for God's sake. They should like music, surely. Exactly. They're in that permanent upper register of sort of, yeah, of banality. And I mean, in a sense, you know, again, going back to the whole new romantic thing, one of the things that was key to that was a certain sense of

foie de, was a certain moodiness. And of course, that is completely absent from the zoo wankers whatever so with all that kind of coming from a similar route that is what they've kind of eliminated and that is something that's really important you know that that the sense of this means something you know the element of discernment you know we're not just sort of a bunch of idiotic fops here you know we're doing this for a reason yes and you know an understanding you know what pop can be and what it's about yeah and yeah i, yeah, I would have, you know, I mean, I was a pretty alienated chap in 1982, and I tell you, watching this for 10 or 15 minutes,

I'd only have, like, ratcheted up the old alienation knob, as it were. At this time, you know, the tubes just started. And I've been looking at one or two episodes of the tube, and there's a lot of things that got wrong, but one of the things that got right was they'd focus on the crowd. You know, like Top of the Pops, they'd have balconies and stuff like that but instead of padding it out with wank snaps like zoo they've got actual people who are enjoying the music and have decided what they're going to wear yeah you know to attend this tv show they know the

music yeah and it's fascinating It's a fascinating social document. I mean, what Zoo are doing here, they're the equivalent of the fans that turn up in football team car parks on transfer deadline day and kind of like ram dildos into people's ears or pretend to bum each other up against some

gates, but in a really bad way. Your eyes are going off the band and you're just looking for people to despise yeah yeah yeah i was doing that throughout this episode and i feel it is because of this new sort of yellow hurl era as you say um zoo are foregrounded in this episode to a greater extent than i've seen in any other episode um i kind of wish you'd you'd forewarned me of this album because fuck me my blood pressure this is why I picked this one I was literally

frothing at the gob I was watching it getting furious and getting furious as I would have done as a 10 year old nobody liked Zoo I was getting furious as I was as a 21 year old and still taking everything pretty earnestly and stuff like that.

And I'd probably laugh at my 21-year-old self and like how he took all this kind of thing to heart. You know, come on, David, it's just pop music. Just people dancing around, having fun. What's up with that? But no, I apologise formally to my 21-year-old self because he was quite right. This stuff should make your blood boil.

You know, and shouting, you know, bloody fascist Thatcher scum is not inappropriate. That notion that it's just pop music is always fatal for pop. And it's exactly what Zoo think. Yeah, that's their

attempt at a get-out in court. No. Unacceptable. I was only obeying orders from Flick Colbert. Yeah, when they have the nuremberg trials of these people yeah that will not be a cop out and it's a shame because this i mean this is a really good song and i quite like it yes let's talk about the song shall we you know um it is very 60s sounding yes if you didn't have a color telly or if you turn the color off they do look kind of authentically 60s if you like. And it gets the

vibe right. The sound of the thing gets the vibe right. It's somewhere between kind of Boy From New York City and really saying something in a way. It's a genuine 60s kind of reverb to the sound of it. I remembered this song, but I hadn't heard it genuinely like decades I don't think. But it's a corker. It's a corker

of a one-hit wonder, I think. It shows off to a flyer isn't it it is but like I say wanted to enjoy the song zoo fucking it up I mean the mod revival

is long dead by now but 60s pastiches were a definite thing in 1982 I mean Mary Wilson has hoved interview this year

Tracy Ormond's about to kick off but Phil Collins is currently at number six with his cover of You Can't Horry Love and now there's this I can technically agree with you that this is a decent song

from an objective point of view but this would really raise my hackles at the time, this whole Motown thing it's not because I hate Motown, far from it but there was a lot of this as you say and it was fit on Human League, Mirror Man and as you say, Mary Wilson was fit on Human League, Mirror Man, you know. And as you say, Mary Wilson, who I thought was just about acceptable. But there was just so much of it.

And I think I disliked it because, first of all, a lot of it is that kind of simple Motown beat. It's for like Carlton, how fresh Prince of Bel-Air to dance to, you know. Like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, But, yeah, there was that in that norm. Because, you know, I was a bit of a soul bond, a bit of a dancer in those days. And I was very much into the kind of modern end of things. You know, your D-trains, your Bambatas, your Trouble Funk. And I just felt that, again, you know, it's that kind of sort of delayed white reaction to, you know, to black music or whatever.

Oh, we can get the 60s. We can just about, you know, we can do the 60s now. Because they weren't really quite ready for what was actually being pumped out of New York or whatever at the time. Simon will probably have a go at me. Again, never mind. It's my turn on the mic this time, you know. That's like they're listening. Sometimes, you know, it's a general thing. You know, I occasionally get the feeling that, you know, one or two chaps think I don't actually listen to these things.

You know, I'm just this old geezer, you know, just only interested in his own sort of no no i listen i listen and i take notes i have a little book it's all registered don't worry bear that in mind next time there's a bang coming up soon you can uh you can take your frustrations out on simon with yes well yes i mean neil tennant was very taken by this in the smash it single page uh he said the 60s aren't going to go away, you know, but at least this trip my already raised hackles is that bloody beard. I mean, come on. It has no place in this decade. And I mean, it doesn't just apply to him. There are a lot of beards in this episode.

There are, yeah. And this applies across the board, actually. But no, I mean, it has no place at any point in history at all, actually. Disgusting. Al, you sort of gave us a list of, of you know the stuff that was coming out that year that was looking back to the 60s out of that i would pluck like you can't hurry love by phil collins which i found i found that objectionable at the time i think and i think what i detected in that is perhaps what's going on here but i kind of excuse it because i like the song

is there is that sense in 82 i guess that they're trying to in a sense reject the last couple of years and and go back to something deeper, you know, more soulful and more honest than all the rest of it. Yeah, but Phil Collins rejecting what happened over the past couple of years, mainly the stuff that he made, surely that's a good thing. Yeah, but you know what?

I take coming in the air tonight over Can't Hurry Love, I have to say. And I think Neil's right there. And I think this is something that, you know, something that culminates in the excruciating 1987 of Wet, Wet, Wet. You know, this very sort of white-orientated idea of soul authenticity achieved by osmosis or imitation or just simply practically replication or whatever at times.

The thing is with this Maisonette song, the reason it works for me is that cosmetically the sound is right. It's not just the 60s song retooled in the 80s it sounds 60s-ish but beyond that the band themselves they i mean beards notwithstanding they look like they could the backing the two girls doing the backing singing and the drummer and the bass player and the lead singer they look like they yeah they could have been airlifted in from the 60s. It's not necessarily a sort of exercise in time travel, but it's a little bit more convincing than Phil Collins in a shit grey flecked suit singing an old Motown song.

Studiously monochrome as well, aren't they, in the costumes amid all the pink balloons. Very much so. Essentially done out like the Dave Clark Five, aren't they? They've got white suits and they've got black polo necks. Yeah, they are studiously monochrome in contrast with the pink balloons. Very much so. Essentially done out like the Dave Clark Five, aren't they? Yeah. They've got white suits and they've got black polo necks. Yeah, they are studiously monochrome in contrast with the pink balloons and the zoo wanker, et cetera, et cetera. I could have done one or two stern looks of reproach, I think,

you know, would have topped it off. Yeah, but there is one genuinely confusing moment, thoroughly confusing moment. I doubt that you probably did notice it. But when he sings, there's a change in the song where it goes to a bit where he starts singing

Leave Me Alone. Yes. And he shoves one finger in his pocket. What is all that about? I've got no idea. He shoves deliberately towards the camera.

He shoves one finger in his pocket like he's tucking something down there. Maybe he's going to Tesco afterwards and he wants to make sure that he's got that coin

thing that you can get the trolley chain off with. Maybe, but no. This was before trolleys needed coins. Which finger is it? Yeah, it could have been a ring finger. Is it the middle finger? No, it's his forefinger.

It's his forefinger and it's, I don't know, is it a's his forefinger and it's I don't know was it a drugs reference a rubber johnny reference I don't know what it was maybe he was thinking oh shit I've got my wedding ring on

and I'm singing a song about being a loner in a house you know that I got because I'm alone maybe no no

when I say forefinger am I getting that wrong I mean you know your second finger the one next to your thumb yeah yeah index finger index finger yeah Index finger.

Yeah, that's what he shoves down there. What's all that about? If he was tucking a packet of cigarettes into his, you know, the sleeve of his T-shirt, that'd be another thing. But he wasn't. It's very, very strange that moment. Yeah. And the song, it's an interesting approach to housing

by the Conservative government there. Oh, you've been dumped. You can have a house. I mean, we've already gone on about them, but we're going to go back to them time and time again to get used to it, Pulp Creationists. I mean, the standard Yellow Hurl hierarchy is in place for this performance, isn't it?

The kids are a shadowy mass in cheapo party hats in the foreground. The band's in the middle, and the zoo wankers are towering above them upstage, being, as always, unable to dance to a song that flick colby hasn't told them to do anything to it's that lad in the white vest and the shorts and the socks isn't he that just cannot fucking dance to anything it looks like you know if you're playing grand theft auto and you're running around and you've got a bit of jam or whatever on your joypad and it's stuck and he just ends up running into a wall.

That's exactly how he dances. They're not fit for purpose. They can't dance. No. Play a record at Legs & Co. Play a record at Pans People. They'll dance. They won't need to do something routine-y and stage school-y.

They'll just get on with it. They'll just get down to it. Zoo cannot do that. No. They have to put their legs too far apart they have to do something stupid with each other

they cannot just dance rhythmically to a record they're fucking inept they're not fit for purpose and yet they're everywhere they're everywhere across the balcony across where the kids should be

sort of in front of the band as well on both sides of the stage I was you know the moments when you do see people of 1982 in this episode a blessed relief because that it's really rare that you get to see normal people yeah it's these cunts it's a cavalcade of it is a cavalcade of cunts a cunt yes yes a cunt-o-rama, yes, yes. A cuntitude of cunts. Ready, steady, cunt. But this is the worst thing, isn't it? They go from like, you know, the 70s or whatever,

when you've got these kind of very weird, sort of nervous, unenthusiastic, mousy audiences, and then they just leap directly to these kind of ludicrously, zanely, over-enthusiastic, you know, nonsense. Get people in who are kids who actually know and like pop music uh when you talk about the tube revolver was really good at that as well you know it's not hard to do people of that age are interesting when they're just being themselves yeah yeah and i look at zoo and i think they are the the precursor of the Instagram generation.

They have a brassy confidence, yeah, that the other kids don't. Yeah, I mean, they're at the pathologically attention-seeking end of youth. Yeah, yeah. Look, it's not Michael Hurl's job to provide us 30-odd years later with social documentation of that era. But it would have made for a better show. This is the thing. It would have made for a better show this is the thing it would have made for a better show it's always better seeing british people dance rather than you know some dance troupe dance um yes you know especially so many of them at the end of this show

at the very end of this show they're you know zoo are listed in the credits and they get named there's only about seven or eight names that's's bullshit. There's about 40 of them. What would it have been like in that last episode from 1978, Neil, if Zoo had been involved there? Zoo trying to dance to Ian Jury. I mean, it... I don't really want to think about it.

All dressed up as Zoo punks. Well, yeah. Or playing crap too wide air guitar to Thin Lizzy. It would have been appalling. And playing crap, too wide air guitar to Thin Lizzy. It would have been appalling. It would have been appalling. And in 1982, right, the only place in which these arseholes could have got away with this is on the studio floor at Top of the Pops. Any club, any disco, anywhere in the country at the time, it would have been,

fucking hell, they've got to plop these twats. Get the tools. Exactly. Yeah. The fucking ashtrays would have been brandished. Definitely, yeah. But yeah, brilliant song. It's 60s as fuck, but unlike Phil Collins' You Can't Hurry Love,

it's not a Xerox copy. The fact that this, for me, is perhaps the highlight, illustrates the grim picking to Hen, I think. No, I believe there is better, yeah. I mean, I can objectively agree with you about what you're saying about the song, but also he's got form from 5705, which is, that was just horrible. I mean, that was the moment where I just thought, you know, punk is just dying at this moment.

It was like a little hiatus between punk and post-punk when things like City boy and 5705 appear you know a slightly sort of tapered version of a sort of old-fashioned blandness and um um so yeah so i've resented a bit for that as well it's the difference between where we were at this time out uh you know david was a principled thinker about pop music at this time i was a 10 year old kid you know you know what i mean? By this point, I was one of the last few mods in the school. And a year or so later, I would

be the last one. So, at the time, I approved of this. I was looking forward to more from them. And I fancied the smaller back-ends. So, the following week, Hard Take Avenue stayed at number 39, but that's not surprising as the charts were trapped in the amber of Christmas week,

as is its want. When the shops opened again, it leapt 10 places to number 29, and two weeks later it would begin a two-week run at number 7. It would also get to number 1 in the independent chart, and got to number 12 in Canada. The follow up Where I Stand failed to chart however and after replacing the models with two

actual singers, one of whom being Carla Mendonca who appeared in every BBC alternative comedy TV show of the 80s and 90s and was the mam on the ITV kids show My Parents Are Aliens and releasing five more flop singles they split up in

1984. Mason went on to write LP tracks for Samantha Fox and then turned to script writing, becoming a regular contributor to the Radio 4 show Weekending and the drama series Richard Barton, General Pract general practitioner and sadly he passed

away last year oh i feel bad i'm sorry about all that stuff about the beard now stands technically but you know obviously but yeah indie number one this is yeah yeah and we're gonna we're gonna get another indie number one pretty soon, aren't we? Oh, are we? Oh, yes. Spoiler alert, Pope Crazy Young says it's not going to be Joy Division. It's going to be Joseph K, isn't it? This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon Pull Apart, only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long.

Tax is extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome to All Rather Mysterious, the podcast that aims to unlock the mysteries of the past with the key of fact. My name is John Rain. My name is Eleanor Morton. My name is David Reed. Please join us as we present to you mysteries that have baffled the world. You had any noises? What about the door creaking? You don't have to do it.

That weird ka-dunk that lights going off makes for some reason in films. All rather mysterious. From Birmingham, the Maze of Mesh making their top of the top, Pop's debut and Heartache Avenue. And now from an American television special of a few years ago, it's David Bowie with Bing Crosby. APPLAUSE They told me ba-rum-pa-bum-bum A newborn king to see ba-rum-pa-bum-bum Kid, surrounded by more members of City Farm, whips us immediately into Peace on Earth, Little Drummer Boy by David Bowie and Bing Crosby.

David Bowie and Bing Crosby. We've already covered David Jones and Harry Crosby Jr. on Chart Music and this single was recorded on the set of the TV special Bing Crosby's Merry Old Christmas with lots of E's on the end at the ATV Studios

in Elstree on September the 11th 1977. A special which also featured Ron Mooda twiggy and stanley baxter it's a partial cover of the song carol of the drums which was an interpretation of a czech folk song and written by the american composer katherine kennicott davis in 1941 and then left in a draw for a decade before it was recorded for the first time as an acapella song by the actual Trap Family Singers in 1951. In 1957 a full version was arranged by the American composer Jack Halloran but not released so it was offered by 20th Century Fox

Records to another composer Harry Simeone who knocked together the version we know today. He also changed the title to Little Drummer Boy and had an American hit with it for four years in a row. When Simeone's version was put out over here in February of 1959, it sparked not one but two cover versions with all three of them in the then top 30 the original getting to number 13 for two weeks a version by michael flanders getting to number 20 and the beverly sisters having the biggest hit out of all of them when it got to number five it was also covered on the jackson five christmas album in 1970 and was covered as a follow-up to Amazing Grace by the Pipes and Drums and the Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guard getting to number 13 in December of 1972. This is Bowie's follow-up of sorts to Cat People Putting Out Fire which got

to number 26 in April of this year. It entered the charts at number 73 at the end of the month, then soared 34 places to number 39, and then stealthily pum-pum-pumped its way up the charts, leaping seven places this week from number 10 to number 3. Oh, so much to discuss here, chaps. First question, obviously. Why is a musical innovator getting involved with a cross-dressing artist

who has limited appeal in America? Well, you know, let's keep Bing and Stanley Baxter out of this for the moment and concentrate on Bowie instead. People go on about this nowadays as if it's some mind-blowing event. But, you know, this sort of TV special thing was still going on in this nowadays as if it's some mind-blowing event but you know this sort of tv special thing was still going on in 1977 wasn't it yeah yeah yeah and it's still going on now you know mariah carey's got one this year michael buble's got one this year i'm sure where a host of odd guests turn up you know it's it's tradition it's a tradition i always avoid these

shows but yeah they've always been with us. You know, these wonderfully sort of L'Autrement Surrealist kind of throwing together of like, yeah, Twiggy, Stanley Baxter, you had Bowie and Bing Crosby. Yeah, it's great. I think at this stage, I mean, I think Bowie does talk about wanting to,

he'd already done, around this time, well, slightly later, he did the, he narrated Peter and the Wolf, I think, a few months after he did this. So, you know, and I guess this, I don't know, he's gone from his sort of Berlin period to his Irving Berlin period, you might say. Yeah, very good.

Sorry, I'm sorry. Yeah, I think he was talking about trying to sort of normalise his career in some way, whether it was, you know, he did Peter and the Wolf for Duncan, his son, who was, you know, a little kiddie at the time. And so maybe, I don't know, he was just, you know, he just wanted to kind of sort of, I don't know, straighten out a little bit for a while by doing things like this. This is 1977, and he's got product to shift

because Heroes, the LP and the single, is being released the following month. I'm guessing that he knows that with punk in the ascendancy, in the UK at least, he's not obliged to be seen as the weird one anymore. Presumably Johnny Rotten turned Bing Crosby down so they got Bowie in instead. But hence the really surreal bit when it cuts to the hero's video.

Yes. In the midst of this Christmas special. I mean, there's lots of surreal bits in this Christmas special. I'm sort of minded to believe what the producers of the show say that David Bowie only did the show because his mum loved Bing Crosby

and also you know he hates this song David Bowie tells the producers he hates this song which necessitates the rewrite and a slight counter melody for it but in a weird way oddly for me it makes more sense in 82 yes than it would have done in 77 yeah bowie fans will swear down of course that it's the 70s run that's important if you like but like it or not it's definitely scary monsters that

put puts bowie in the waiting area for sort of genuine international superstardom yes and it's less dance the following year from this year that puts him there. So where I think in 77, Bowie and his fans might have, I don't know, enjoyed the slight perversity of him in a sense, turning up on a show with Twiggy and Stanley Baxter and Ron Moody.

Yeah. By 82, it sort of feels more like him, I don't know, taking his place amongst the legends, if you like. Yes. It makes more sense in 82 than 77. As an artifact from 77, it's an, you know,

unimpeachably and undimmably strange thing. A weird thing, this thing. But I do recall enjoying the song and getting, I mean, look, I was young and stupid,

okay? But I was getting a genuine sense of religious awe from it. Well, as much awe as a 10 yearyear-old would get from this. By the time you're 10, unless you're at a Catholic school, God has pretty much stopped scaring you, and he just becomes another pop cultural figure.

You judge God by the songs and the films and the stories. So my children's Bible was much thumbed and hammered but really for the fantastical elements for the manna from heaven for saul getting caught his hair caught in a tree and salome bringing the head of john the baptist out on a party platter yeah um give me enough brandy now when this will be a christmas song i love but i do need that brandy to get across the stilted oddness of it which to be honest with you, Bing Crosby always had. Yes.

With all his co-stars. I mean, especially his own family, you know. Yeah. It's weird, Bing Crosby, because so much success, Frozen food pioneer, tape pioneer, microphone pioneer,

and yet there's something remorselessly unlovable about him. Something patrician and cold about him, you know, and I'm not even one of his kids there's just always been something about bin crosby that's cold and unreachable and unlikable i think yeah i think there's a kind of a weird link there i mean it's funny the sort of dynamic the way they're kind of looking at each other and it's almost this weird thing of like the father i

might have had you know the son that i might have had, as it were, culturally, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, just as well for Bowie, he wasn't actually Bing Crosby's son, you know, because as we know, I mean, he treated them absolutely appallingly like one of his kids who he called his fat ass kid. And he put him on, you know, put him on the scales each week. And if he was an ounce or so overweight, he'd thrash him in his study with, you know, some sort of metal studded belt. You know, obviously completely psychologically metal-studded belt. You know, obviously a completely psychologically,

physically abusive human being. You know, and what you learn about, you know, he had links to the mafia and stuff, was constantly in a hock to them, and everything about him. I mean, whereas Sinatra, in various ways, in terms of his sort of legend, projects some of the kind of menace that he had about him, he was probably in some respects a kind of more decent

and redeemable man, you know, in terms of his stuff on racism, etc. Yeah, and Bing Crosby, who I don't think ever played a villain. No. I can't ever remember Bing Crosby ever in a villain. You know, so his life was completely inauthentic. It was complete fiction. It was a complete inversion of the

person he actually was. But in a funny kind of way, inauthenticity is key to the technical developments that he went along with and helped out with. For instance, recording. He wanted to pre-record his radio shows. It's funny, it just ties in with what we were talking about earlier on, live versus canned top

of the pots. And the networks and the sponsors, they were just completely opposed because they said that the public wouldn't want canned radio. The magic, as far as listeners were just completely opposed because they said that the public wouldn't want canned radio. And the magic, as far as listeners were concerned, was this idea that it was all going out live. But no, so he's into the sort of inauthentic aspect of technology. And also that style, the crooning style that he gets,

he understands that you don't have to be like Al Jolson hollering from the back of the hall. You can create a sense of intimacyering from the back of the hall that you can kind of caress, you know, you can create a sense of intimacy by using the technology of the microphone. But yeah, I mean, the very fact that he wants to kind of pre-record, so he invests a lot in magnetic tape

and that's at the heart of the whole kind of music concrete revolution, which has massive, massive influence on, you know, all music, a lot of this avant-garde music from the sort of 1950s onwards. He was also into video and stuff like that. But it's strange. There is this weird link of inauthenticity that goes in between him.

The fact that his persona was completely at odds with the actual human being that he was, and the fact that he didn't place his great store in being organic and authentic and live, etc. The further we get away, you see, from his golden era, place this great store and being kind of organic and authentic and live etc etc yeah yeah the further we get away you see from his golden era from say i don't know post-world war ii era where people are looking for that kind of return to i don't know this patrician elderly figures you know what's going on the further we get away from that that the less likable he becomes and yeah he

can eliminate dead air on his shows and he can bring canned laughter into his radio shows and all this yeah like david said inauthentic stuff but what you can't confect is likability and and when you know even when i watched i watched holiday in the other day and he's just remorselessly not likable throughout it i don't know why he's not given a nasty character or anything but you know it's not even you don't even have to read all the horrible stories about what Bing did to his kids. And, you know, the fact that he just couldn't hug them and he just couldn't express affection and all of these things, which is why so many of them ended up raging alcoholics, a couple of them committed suicide as well. But, you know, what he cannot do with all his technological expertise is make himself likeable.

Because at the heart of Bing Crosby, there's just something flinty and cold. And that comes across in this performance as well. Yes, it does, doesn't it? You know, David Bowie, conversely, always to me, no matter how much he was inflating himself, self-aggrandising himself, or what makeup he was wearing or outfits,

there was at heart a warm individual, no matter what he was doing. And that even comes across here, deep in his cocaine years as he is in this performance. But Bing can't do it. Bing can't do warm. Yeah, there's very little eye contact, isn't there? Yeah, that's right.

And yet you can't get around the fact that he was massively, massively popular. My non-Aurant grandpa would have watched this TV special in 1977. And it was probably the only time they'd ever seen david bowen but that's what is startling about it being 77 you know because it's bowie and it's america it's an i mean it's american presumably a show going out in america yeah made in britain by atv made in britain yeah but with an eye on uh the american audience i'm just presuming most

americans watching this would have just thought who the fuck's this weird looking guy yeah which is why he's doing it you know he's trying to not so much break america but you know establish himself a bit more yeah i mean he's appearing on big american tv shows isn't he i mean from from young americans onwards really from that period onwards he is completely willing to appear on anything american to boost his yeah to boost his profile over there. But I just wonder whether amongst the audience, it would have just been thoroughly confusing. And then he gets, what, four or five minutes of the Heroes video as well on the show. Very, very strange indeed.

Yeah, it's a bizarre setup as well, isn't it? Because apparently the whole premise of the Christmas special is that Bing Crosby and his family's gone over to see his relatives in in the old world and um david bowie lives nearby and um the squire of the mansion allows him to come in and use the piano every now and again it's like but how much money have you spent on cocaine and peppers david and they have this really awkward chat bowie thinks that b ben crosby is the new buckler which does go down too well and um they end up talking about the spirit of christmas and kids they talk about kids don't they the standard fallback conversation piece oh aren't kids great and bowie says that this is his kids favorite christmas song i think slade probably uh had a

bit more of a say in his life at this time. But just going back to what was being crossed with the fact that he was massive, massive popular, it doesn't negate at all what Neil says about him, that sense of flimsy coldness, which I entirely agree with, but the fact that he was able to kind of weave,

confet this massive success just at that kind of screen-deep level of superficiality and garner such mass appeal on the basis of that, I find quite odd. I wonder if it had come through in the 70s, 80s, 90s, whether that cold flintiness would have actually genuinely stood against him,

whether we do demand more authentic warmth now from megastars or whatever. I don't know. He stayed as a star for a long time because of his longevity if you like you know in a sense i i guess the american audience that absolutely went for crosby in a big way and the british audience as well what they'd seen him go through yeah pre world war ii through world war ii post world war ii through the 50s through the 60s so you know

anyone in a sense who is a survivor in that regard is going to get clung to and he's going to get that appeal just by dint of their statuitiveness and and yeah and he's the voice of christmas as well to a lot of people yeah oh man if that's the voice of your christmas i don't want to spend christmas with you um i mean i've not seen this mentioned anywhere so this is this is going off the top of my head but as as we all know bowie walked in with anja in fur coats with a bit of eyeliner on and lipstick and said point blank i'm not doing this song and if this is the only song i can do then i'm not doing it hence the musical directors going, knocking out a counterpoint melody in an hour or so.

And yeah, I've not seen it mentioned anywhere, but do you think Bowie was knocking back Little Drummer Boy because of the connection to Ian Brady? You know, it was on that tape that was played in court only nine years previous. You know, every time time little drummer boy came on my parents and grandparents would purse their lips really i've read stories of northern jack reagan types who worked on the case you know hearing that song on a pub jukebox and just

putting down their pints and walking out you know it was a tainted song in Britain for years, and Bowie would have known that. Wow. I really didn't know that at all. I never knew that history, and I wonder if... Yeah, I didn't know that. I mean, obviously, Prince Buster tried to heal the wound in 1969 with Wreck-A-Pon-Pon. Yeah, yeah.

What a shame Bowie and Bing Crosby didn't sing that. And, yeah, it would have been much more interesting. In fact, it would have been even more interesting if they had done a cover of Wreck-A-Buddy by the Soul Sisters yes

filthy filthy late 60s reggae song only with his ugly eyes on mine yeah he has a dick and I wanna grind

that's the fella yeah that would have been fascinating but Bowie knew everything didn't he I suspect he did know about that but I do Al I doubt it was that I just don't think you like that song it you know if you were

offered that song come on what can you do with that yeah you can't do a lot it's not really going to showcase you is it it's a slow doleful number with a very quite simple melody but but it's a fucking mad song anyway the lyrics are mental oh someone we don't know who's just had a baby so you know let's go and bang a drum at it that'll go down well but anyway that's bowie in 1977 let's talk about bowie in 1982 because it's been it's been a quiet year for him on the recording front hasn't it i mean he's only really put out soundtrack stuff i mean there was ball from the bbc version of the break play and then the previous song was the theme to cat people and you know here he is doing other people's songs it appears that rca is just emptying out the tin of whatever material they've got

because they've put out changes to bowie this year right so as a pop craze youngster not knowing any of this backstory just looks like Bowie's in his waning years little do we know that he's already having a chit chat with Nile Rodgers and getting ready to make the biggest selling LP of his career that is not on the horizon at this point is it and that's kind of his last hurrah as well I would say yeah I mean I think that's the last sort of you of time that he has the kind of zeitgeist thing going on. I mean, you know, 1977, 1982, it's just, I mean, people would obviously have been aware. I mean, everyone knew that Bing Crosby died shortly after making this. So no one's going to be sort of like common to thinking that, you know, they did it six months earlier.

So there is that, I suppose. But yeah, I mean, generally, yeah, Let's Dance, I think, was the very last relevant thing that he did, his thinking relevance. I think he just had an absolute, the surest grasp of anybody on, you know, the sort of zeitgeist, the whole dialectical thing throughout the 70s, including Krautrock, you know, including the kind of shift from west to east, as it were, you know, and saying that that is where the new inspiration is going to come from. And, like, the massive favour he did Crack Rock in terms of conferring his blessing on it, because before that it had just been

taken as a joke, and it was just like we have mazes making you listen and all that kind of bollocks. He was just brilliant in that respect, even when he was utterly fucked and drinking his own piss or whatever. He knew at some sort of deep level what was going on and the shifts that were

occurring and that he could initiate and be part of. I just think by the 80s, and I suppose as I was a kind of a principled observer of what was going on, I saw him as a figure that was beginning to kind of lose that kind of grip, really. I mean, fair enough. You know, he had a long, long run. A long, long run at it.

But no, I do find the artist, to i mean it is a bit odd that like releasing something like this five years on especially with something like bowie is all about kind of you know the changes and the dialectical shifts and all that kind of stuff taking someone from a particular moment in 1977 i mean it's odd that the b-side of this is fantastic voyage isn't it which is so it's got you got brian eno on ambient drone on the same time you've got bing crosby on ambient croon on one side and brian brian enno on ambient drone. You've got Bing Crosby on ambient croon on one side and Brian Eno on ambient drone. But apparently that pissed off Bowie, didn't it?

They just thought he was an arbitrary B-side. Who's buying this? Oh, well, I mean... Are Bowie fans buying this? Yeah, I think so. I think a lot of them were very completist, weren't they? I mean, it had been available on a bootleg for a few years. If I was a serious Bowie fan in 82,

this would have worried me, this song, in a sense, because it is a hiatus year. He's making plans, absolutely. He is already talking to Nile Rodgers and stuff and he's kind of got the next stage of world domination on the go. We don't know that, though. And this is the only thing that comes out towards the late period of the year. What I would have been

worried about as a Bowie fan was that oh my god, is he going to come back in 83 like working with Gary Newman or something? He could have gone that way. He could have tried to mirror... He didn't like Gary Newman. What I mean is, he couldn't...

Not that particular person but he could have tried you know bowie is obviously aware of british pop which is basically for the previous two years been totally aping what he's done yeah 70s style and he could have tried to catch the tales of that um but he doesn't he he realizes that the future probably for the 80s is gonna be getting back to in a sense black american pop and black american funk music and that's what sort of happens with let's dance um i'd have been worried though in 82 with this as the sort of soul transmission if you like from the bowie universe five years previously um but yeah i guess completist bowie fans bought this bowie's got a lot of capital of worshipfulness at this point, you know, because as you say,

you know, the whole synth pop era and, you know, and how determined things are by that whole scene. And, you know, in the sense that he's a great forefather to that. The weirdness of both of them really stands out in the performance. But,

you know, Bowie's trying to make eye contact with Bing. Bing's not able to do it. And that there's the, both of them in their own way are so otherworldly i'm looking at this this video and thinking are they blue screened on that background and they're not because we've seen the set yeah there is no connection between no and when the vocals start departing from each other i.e they're not singing the same thing they're both kind of singing individual songs yes um almost to themselves there's no warmth between them there's no there's nothing

between them it's it's a it's truly odd yeah they're staring off in different directions yeah i mean the whole thing looks like your dad and grandpa are having a moment by the drinks cabinet on christmas day while you're on your scale electric and pretending not to notice the awkwardness of it but isn't it odd how the fashions and what they're wearing i mean it's a christmas thing they're not going to be dressed up in anything outlandish and bing crosby never would but no just five years and yet it's already looks so so dated i don't know i mean bing's got a slashing jacardigan on. He's dating the casual era there.

But Bing instantly dates stuff. His face instantly dates it. I'm not saying we're in the 80s now, everyone must look like Zoo, but it's got that seven-ish tint to it. I mean, it's a sort of inadvertent thing insofar as he does die shortly after this. And you can imagine him having this sort of roomy gaze

into, like, death with a capital D, perhaps. You know, you can look at all of that. But no, obviously the male duet is always perhaps a kind of slightly awkward thing to have to negotiate because, you know, you want to sort of project some sort of warmth and soulfulness, but, you know, you don't want to sort of get all Roger Daltrey

and village people and all that, you know. It's odd because they soulfulness, but, you know, when I sort of get all Roger Daltrey and village people and all that, you know. It's odd because they could have done something that was more kind of conventionally, mutually kind of warm and sort of highly regarding one another, but it is strange indeed. Is it any weirder than Bowie and Mick Jagger doing Dancing in the Street, though?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but I mean, Bowie can do duets. I mean, Under Pressure, et cetera. He can do it. And it's just, yeah, without warmth, though, you can't. And I can't think of a Christmas song that would have been suitable for a duet. Because obviously they're not going to do It's Cold Outside, are they? No.

But, yeah. I think Under under pressure is the best of those duets of those three that we mentioned i think it's definitely the best absolutely yeah so two weeks later little drummer boy slash peace on earth dropped six places to number nine and left the top 40 the week after that but not before selling over 445 000 copies in the uk becoming david bowie's ninth biggest selling single of all time over here and the second biggest seller out of all the singles he recorded in the 70s wow behind life on mars Its release turned out to be the final straw in the now fractious relationship between Bowie and RCA. And when his deal expired, he immediately switched to EMI.

And his first single with them, Let's Dance, spent three weeks at number one in April of 1983. And as we've discussed, less than a month after the recording of this song, Bing Crosby died of a heart attack on a golf course near Madrid, cementing Bowie's reputation as the death angel of singers in 1977, as only the week before he performed Heroes on Mark Boland's Granada TV show, and Boland died a week later. Fucking hell, man. If David Bowie wants

to turn up on your TV show to do Heroes, get the fuck away from him. He's on Earth Can it be? Can it be? Come and join us tomorrow for part three of Chart Music, episode 55. On behalf of David Stubbs and Neil Kulkarni, my name's Al Needham. Stay pop crazed.

Chart Music. GreatBigHour.com Hello, I'm Justin. And I'm Lucy. And together we are the hosts of Plenty Questions. It's a very straightforward general knowledge quiz. We ask you 20 questions, one after the other, five second gap in between, and you shout the answers out.

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